Opening Thoughts:
Let me begin by getting a few things off of my chest. Students: Where is the support? The "Green House" was only half full at most and half of you didn't even stand at the beginning of the game. Pathetic. You are tarnishing the memory of all those Rickenbrode Rowdies. Heck, most of you only stand and yell when Bobby is throwing t-shirts! Its kind of sad that this old guy has to yell at you to make some noise when NW is on defense and it's 3rd down. Maybe you should go across the way and sit in the west stands and let the real fans sit at the 50 yard line. My other rant goes to all those defensive geniuses that were standing around me during this last game. You have to give the team time to adjust. They always do. Just because they don't make an adjustment in the first 5 minutes of a game, doesn't mean that they wont. And to the guy that was saying that NW had to get pressure on the QB right after he just completed a 3 step drop pass - unless you have some majic way of getting around the OL - you're not going to get pressure on a 3 step drop!
Last Weeks Recap:
Ay Chiwawa - I thought this game was going to be a track meet the way it started out. Northwest scored in 3 of their first 12 plays of the game - and that 3rd drive took 8 plays and 80 yards. It took the first three drives for the NW D to adjust. In those first three drives ENMU put up 188 yards passing, they finished the day with 280. So they only got 92 more yards after the adjustment was made. That is pretty darn good!
Prior to the game, I thought that it was going to be a rehash of the the UCM game. Boy was I wrong! The greyhounds were bound and determined to stop the run. So they were puttinga bunch of people in the 'box'. Well, when you do that you open yourself up to the pass game. And Boy did NW walk thru that door. Even with a back up QB and the #1 WR being out of the game, the Bearcats put up a whopping 453 yards in the air. Trevor Adams completed 23 of 31 passes with 1 interception - putting up 444 yards and 5 touchdowns - that gave him a QB rating of 243! That is outstanding! Adams did have one interception - but that seemed to me at the time to look like a broken play, and he expected his receivers to do something that they didn't do. When I watched it later, it still looked that way, but he also had a WR open deep and if he was throwing to him, it was just an underthrown ball. And give some kudos to the DB who made a leap to pick it off! So in short, I'm not sure if it was a broken play or he just underthrew his receiver. It was also great to see Miller finally get involved in the passing game! I find it interesting that he's only been thrown to once this year, and it resulted in an 80 yard TD. That is one heck of an average! :D Hopefully he will continue to get touches. I know that he messed up at the beginning of the season, but I would think that he has served his sentence! With not running the ball so much, that gives a bit of a rest to Simmons & JF3, Simmons hurt his shoulder in the UCM game and Franklin was dinged up as well I believe.
On the defensive side of the ball - like I said once NW made the necessary adjustments, ENMU wasn't able to do much of anything. NW started off rushing 4 and trying to pressure the QB. But thats not capable on those quick throws. So NW adjusted and only rushed 3 and dropped more into pass coverage. NW was able to disguise there blitzes nicely at times as were able to actually get to the QB and get some sacks I think some people see that NW doesn't have the sacks or TFL and think that the DL isn't pressuring the QB. That simply isn't true. How many times has the DL surrounded the QB only to have him pop out and run or get to the edge and throw it? A more accurate critique would be that the TE's haven't contained the QB to allow the sack or TFL - but NW is getting the pressure. It was nice to see Morales finally being productive in the game. I don't know if he will ever start, but it was nice to at least see him be in the game more often than he has been.
This Week’s Match up:
Here we go. This game is for a lot of marbles. If NW loses this one, they could end up not making the PO's for the first time in 6 years. If NW wins this one and wins out, they could possibly be sharing the conference title, and if everything works out right, they could still be in the hunt for a bye week the first week of the PO's. So as you can tell, there is definitely a lot riding on the line for this game.
Interesting Facts/Statistics:
Quotes:
“Noah, why do you always have to take the bleachers apart?”
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